SOLTuesday: Poetry in the Park

            I’ve been going to a monthly poetry salon for about six years. JP Howard is the founder of Women Writers in Bloom; she invites a writer, usually a poet, to give a short workshop, read from her (usually it’s a woman) work, answer questions, and it’s all followed by an open mike.

            BryantPark, behind the New York Public Library in midtown, has hosted readings during the summer for several years now. And tonight Women Writers in Bloom presented, for the second or third year, four of its established and emerging poets. It was a beautiful evening, and each poet was stupendously better then the previous one.

            I arrived a bit early and saw several people I knew, from the salon, but also a woman from the gym. Found a seat, ate the delicious Indian food I’d gotten from the food fair over on Broadway, and absorbed the moving and inspiring poetry, and tried to ignore the sirens of multiple emergency vehicles storming down 42nd  Street. (Had something gone badly wrong somewhere? Who knows—it’s only New York City.)